Climate change threatens everything we love. Here in Seattle, heat waves have become the new normal, wildfire smoke chokes our summer skies, and our salmon and orcas are dying. These impacts are multiplied the world over, as rapidly increasing numbers of people and ecosystems are threatened by rising sea levels, deadly storms, drought, and famine.

Despite its commitments to climate action, Seattle's climate pollution has been rising in recent years. We can no longer respond to the climate emergency with incremental measures or empty words. The climate crisis urgently necessitates an all-hands-on-deck mobilization.

The Seattle for a Green New Deal campaign demands that our city leaders create a transformative Green New Deal for Seattle that will eliminate our city’s climate pollution by 2030, address historical and current injustices, and create thousands of good, union jobs.

We demand that our city leaders do the following four things in 2019:

End all new fossil fuel infrastructure within city limitsImmediately change land use zoning codes to prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure in city limits, including new gas hook-ups in residential and commercial buildings.

Create the structures for Seattle’s Green New DealWe urge City Council and the mayor to immediately create a Green New Deal investment vehicle and a Green New Deal Task Force, which will decide how investments will be made.

Fund Seattle’s Green New DealEliminating Seattle’s climate pollution by 2030 will cost billions of dollars. We must start to raise this money immediately by moving forward with some of the revenue-raising options available to us: a climate emergency tax on big business, a congestion price, a one-off climate emergency levy put to the voters, and the re-purposing of other City funds. There is no time to waste: Mayor Durkan must implement at least one such measure before the end of 2019.